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philochristos

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philochristos
I think the key premise in Pro's argument is the premise that it is easier to create a world on purpose than for a world to come about by accident. In the third round, Con appears to concede this premise. Since Pro gave a full defense of his main argument, and Con barely even responded to it, even forfeiting one round, Pro is the clear winner.
philochristos
Just so everybody knows my bias, I suspect the MOA is a sound argument, but I don't think there is any non-question-begging way to show that it's sound. The quality of Pro's writing was better than Con's. Con included statements such as, "Taking an unproven possibility asserting it as matter of fact," which is not even a complete sentence. The main crux of Con's case is that Pro needed to prove the possibility of a MGB, but Pro failed to do so. Pro's "proof" of a MGB involved pointing out that there is no logical incoherence between the various great-making properties that a MGB would have to have to be a MGB. Con's claim that Pro hadn't proved anything at this point rings hollow. Does Con think there IS a logical incoherence between any of the great-making properties? Then he should've said so. But how do you show that two statements do not contradict other than just by saying, "Look!"? If the statement, "There's a cookie in the cookie jar," does not contradict the statement, "The moon is not made of cheese," then it's possible for both statements to be true, which means there's a possible world in which both statements are true. What more would be needed to show the two statements are consistent? If there is no explicit contradiction, then the default position is that they are consistent, and the burden of proof falls on the one claiming they are inconsistent. Pro explained what a possible world is, but Con did not appear to grapple with the implications of that explanation, which is that if there is no incoherence between various properties, then there is a possible world in which they co-exist. Pro was right to remind Con that the MOA is an a priori argument, not an evidence-based argument. Con was faulting the argument for not being what it does not even aspire to be.